Player Two: How Tails Met Sonic
by TheBlurredLine23
Summary: So how did Tails and Sonic meet anyway? Everybody seems to have their own version of the story, differing from the games to the comics to the TV shows. Even the Japanese and American versions of the instruction manual tell different stories. What's "canon"? This is my attempt to tell the story...my way. Follows the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit version).
1. Chapter 1: The Twin-Tailed Fox

___**Disclaimer:** Sonic characters (Sonic, Tails, etc.) belong to SEGA. The rest (Stew, Susan, etc.) are mine._

_A/N: spd243, this is the story you've been waiting for!_

_Just over a year ago, I started writing the first draft of this story on paper-thus, I thought it would be appropriate to post this first chapter today._

_Earlier this year, I started reading JudasFm's _Rising Star. _Ironically, it shared some things with my story. This was complete coincidence-I completed the entire first draft before touching _Rising Star._ Do read her story-it's amazing. This, in the meantime, is my attempt to tell the story in my own way._

_I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

**Player Two: How Tails Met Sonic**

**Late August 1992**

**Chapter 1: The Twin-Tailed Fox**

Two. Such a strange number. The only prime even number, it makes a difference between singular and plural. Humans are built in twos. Two eyes. Two arms. Two legs. Two hands. Two feet. Two genders, which, when together, can make a child. And for one particular child, the number two made a huge difference in everything.

As far as he could tell, Miles Prower was a normal kid. He walked normally. His eyes looked normal. And he talked normally, didn't he?

No, scratch that. Sometimes when he got really excited in explaining something, he'd start blabbing. Still, he didn't understand why kids would leave when he did.

They did a lot of things he didn't understand.

For example, why did they call him stupid? He most certainly wasn't stupid. He was reading the encyclopedia A when others were reading "Flopsy Goes for a Walk," and that was when he was six.

Or how people's personalities could change so quickly. One minute they were nice, but the second they saw his extra appendage, their expressions turned sour.

Was something so wrong having two tails? And why did they care? It wasn't their body. Honestly, Miles would have been okay with his two tails if it weren't for the way people reacted to them. Why was he considered a freak?

Miles had been pondering this for years. He asked people this, and if he didn't get a dirty look, he was told to go ask his parents—which he would have gladly done, had they still been alive.

Six years ago was a very long time ago, especially to seven-year-old Miles. Sometimes he tried to picture his parents in his head, but all he could come up with was a loving caress. He wished he could've had that loving caress again, but he couldn't. Not at the orphanage, where he had lived for four years, and nobody wanted to adopt him, and certainly not now. He had been living on the unkind streets for almost two years now, and he, unlike many kids, knew he wasn't looking forward to his eighth birthday. After all, it was just another day, and his days, as of late, he could count on being horrible.

"Hey, where do you think you're going, speed limit?"

Miles didn't bother turning around. He already knew it was Stew, the self-proclaimed "biggest, baddest bully on the block", and he knew the gang wouldn't be far behind.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!

Miles kept walking. Sure, he was scared, but if anybody knew it except for him, he'd surely be kicked. Maybe Stew would leave him alone if he kept his mouth shut.

No such luck. The next thing he knew was Stew ramming him into a wall.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Miles reluctantly and fearfully raised his eyes to meet the seething, gray opossum. Stew's own stormy gray eyes glinted with hate as he smacked the fox across the face. "Din't yer parents teach ya to respect yer elders? 'Cuz I ain't seeing it," Stew spat.

Miles looked out of the corner of his eye to the other kids that happened to be playing on the block. They were watching, but as usual, they just stood there, balls in hand, jump ropes still. He knew they wouldn't be any help to him. They never were.

If he had to guess, it was because they were afraid of him. Captain Stew and his gang were the toughest and the oldest (being sixteen) kids on the block. You challenge Stew, and you'd probably end up on the floor, bleeding, if you were lucky. Kids stayed out of the way, so they were mostly left alone.

So why did he target Miles?

"H-hi, Stew," Miles stuttered, trying not to breathe in the stench of Stew's breath as the opossum leaned in and placed a rough hand on Miles' neck.

"Listen to me, freak. I catch ya anywhere near my chilidog again, I'mma make sure ya don't get another bite to eat that day. Got it?" The huge hand tightened its grip on Miles as its owner snarled in the boy's face.

Miles nodded dumbly. Don't touch Stew's chilidog. Ever. Got it.

All he had wanted was something to eat. After all, it had just been lying out in the open, and he'd never even _tasted_ a chilidog in his life. He was so hungry…

"Good." Stew dropped his prey disgustedly. "Now go away. I don't wanna see yer ugly hide for the rest of the day."

Wordlessly and as quickly as his scrawny legs could carry him, Miles picked himself up and scrambled away from the bully. He was lucky all he had was a couple of bruises and a sore neck.

Was it so hard to get what he wanted for once?

His stomach growled as he went back to digging through the garbage—well, what was left of it. _Come live on the streets if you want to lose weight quickly_, he thought food he'd found lately was few and far between, and he often had to go hungry. If he happened to be really lucky, he'd stumble upon the trashcan of a family with finicky eaters. The kids' parents weren't happy, but he sure was. Food was one of those things he could never get enough of.

The other was knowledge. Miles loved reading. He'd read anything. Fiction helped him to escape this torture he had to call life, but he preferred non-fiction. Non-fiction, he thought, was much more useful. He learned the names and appearance of edible plants and other things. However, it wasn't botany that interested him the most. What caught his attention most was aviation. As long as he could remember, Miles loved airplanes. He often spent hours in the small village library hunting up and down the shelves for books on the subject, and every time a plane flew over, he wished he were flying in it too.

Speaking of the library, it would've opened by now. Maybe the librarian had something good to give him to eat. She was a nice lady.

He rushed off, leaving the trash can lid clattering behind him.

* * *

Many of the people Miles had met in his short life hadn't been that nice to him.

Of course, the librarian wasn't one of those people.

"Hello, Miles," she called cheerily to the young fox.

"Hi, Library Lady," Miles replied happily. That was his nickname for her. She had told him her name was Susan, but she didn't mind the nickname. It was cute.

Susan Liddle was, in one word, ordinary—although she was a white poodle like the model Bertha Inwood, there was no way you could ever get the two mixed up. Susan was average. Plain-looking. Plain-spoken and shy. Regular, almost boring. The youngest of six, she was the kind of person who could enter and leave a room during a conversation and not attract attention in the least—thus, when she'd quietly announced that city life was not for her and that she'd be moving to the tiny Westview Village to be a librarian, nobody had protested. Nonetheless, this did not deter Miles from liking her all the same. It had been two years since that frigid January night, but their friendship had only grown stronger since then.

It had been an "empty" day for Miles that day, because it was the day after the orphanage had shut down—Miles hadn't had anything to eat since then, even with his efforts to dig things out of the trash. Susan's husband, a rather plain Labrador known as Evan, had been taking out the trash when he'd spotted the tiny, starving fox-child digging through it.

"Susan!" he'd called, and she'd immediately rushed out to see what the problem was. The moment she saw him, a deep pang of sympathy hit her. She hadn't even noticed Miles' second tail until she'd had him sitting confusedly in a nice, warm bath.

_Wait, didn't I already wash his tail? _she remembered thinking, just as bemused as the boy sitting in the tub before her. She'd scrubbed that one thoroughly, so how…? At that moment, the tiniest tuft of the tail she'd washed peeked out of the water. She abruptly stopped scrubbing. Miles had realized at the same time as her what she had seen, so he dipped it back under again, but Susan had seen enough. A two-tailed fox? That was just about the weirdest thing that had happened to her in her life, and she stared openly at him until she felt something trembling in her hand.

She looked down at the hand, with the second tail still clutched in it—it was shaking, and when she looked back at its owner, he too was shivering like he was still outside in the snow. It hit her like a brick—he wasn't cold anymore; he was scared she was going to hurt him, now that she had seen his flaw. That was why he had hidden it from her. He was frightened from the chance that she would throw him out, back into the snow because that was how he'd grown up, thinking that his extra tail made him worthy of needless abuse. In fact, now she wondered why she hadn't noticed him before, what with the stuff he likely dealt with. She loathed that kind of abuse, and she stopped it wherever she had the courage to do so.

So instead, she smiled at him, continuing to scrub the tail. "There, there," she soothed, "I'm not going to throw you out. I promise."

He'd looked up at her curiously, which only made her smile that much more.

She'd allowed him to stay the night, but the next morning, he'd insisted on leaving after breakfast—"I don't want people to bother you just because you took care of me," he'd said quietly, the tiniest smile peeking out from the little face. "But thank you anyway."

Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that she had no children of her own, she took a special interest in the small vulpine, and made a mental note to keep an eye out for him.

By chance, she'd found him sitting forlornly on the steps of the library the next day, and she'd invited him in. What wonder lit up his face as he took in the sight of all those books, running about, laughing with joy as such it seemed he had never known in his short life before! She'd had to quickly shush him when some patrons gave them funny looks, and he immediately lowered his tone of voice, but the joy was still there.

From then on, day after day, they'd established a little routine at the library. He refused her efforts and offers to take him home, honestly believing that harm would come to her if she helped too much, so she contented herself with bringing him secret small gifts of food and watching him sit in the great green chair, devouring the food and the books in the library. There he was now, twin tails wrapped around him like a blanket, reading a book about airplanes that was far bigger than him. She smiled as he watched him.

Once she'd brought him a toothbrush and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste, and it shocked her when she saw how happy he was over the "gift". He had hugged her tightly and ran into the library's bathroom to use it. To think that such a sweet boy would have to live such an unfortunate life! It made her heart ache. She wished she could help him more, but the library was only open from ten to five on weekdays—and she couldn't stand to think of what the poor soul had to do on weekends.

Today was Friday.

She called for him to get the little snack she could afford to give him. When he didn't answer, she smiled. He was too engrossed in his book. Thus, she walked up to him.

"Miles?"

He looked up, innocent blue eyes glittering.

"Here's a snack for you," Susan said, smiling as she handed him the cookie.

"Thank you," he replied genially.

She smiled again, going back to her desk. She wished she could spend all of her time watching him, but being a librarian came with plenty of hard work.

A few hours later, she looked up again to see that it was already closing time. Miles was still sitting in the same position, the only difference being that he was a lot farther in the book, and his snack was gone.

It made Susan sad every time she said it, but she found it in herself every week to say the three words:

"Miles, it's time."

He glanced up with his big, intelligent eyes that seemed to look right through her. "Okay," he said, closing the book somewhat reluctantly and getting up to give it and the empty plate back to her. "Thank you."

"See you on Monday," Susan returned.

As he smiled widely back at her and walked out the door, she sighed. He really was one of a kind.

* * *

_A/N: If you read and review nothing else, please review this story! This holds a special place in my heart because it is the first novella/novel-length fan-fiction I have ever completed through a first draft. This is the story I really want to get feedback on._

_And please, no flames or comments on "why are Tails' eyes blue?" or "hey, this isn't in the game". "My" continuity is based in the games, but it has things added here and there._

_Thank you, and did I mention please review?_

* * *

_bearvalley3365: Wow...that's a lot of information! I don't think I'll end up using all of that since his role will be small. I just thought of a scene for him and Noah, though. Could you send me Noah's bio? I'll see if they fit the scene from there. Do they have occupations or a specific place where they live? Also, may I adjust/add a few things if necessary?_

_I deleted your review because it's a lot of info that the other reviews don't need to know, but I do have it copied down for future reference._

_kopo: Yeah, that's how it is at our library too...but I have been to a Barnes and Noble where they had a Starbucks inside. So...maybe the rule here is you can, so long as you don't make a mess? I don't know. XD_


	2. Chapter 2: Flight

_**Disclaimer:** Sonic characters (Sonic, Tails, etc.) belong to SEGA. The rest (Stew, Susan, etc.) are mine._

_A/N: Thanks to all who checked out chapter one! Thanks for the wait!_

* * *

**Chapter 2: Flight**

Miles walked out of the library feeling happier than he had coming in—that he could always count on from a visit to the library—but today was something different. Despite the strange glances he got from strangers on the street, he _skipped_ down the street against the current of people heading home. Today was different in the sense he finally found a possible solution to his "extra tail" problem.

It all started a few weeks previously: Stew and his gang had been teasing him again. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary: "freak", "Speed Limit", the usual. Then one morbidly brave kid had suggested something horrifying:

"Why don'tcha just cut it off?"

This was followed with a few looks of abhorrence from by-standers and even a few gang members. However, the looks vanished when Stew spoke up, "Yeah, why not?" He got up right in Miles' face, saying with an almost sincere look, "We'd let ya hang out with us if ya did…"

Miles' blue eyes widened in disbelief. Would they really do that? Sure, they weren't the nicest people, but having some friends was better than none at all…

"Hah! Yeah, right!" one of the others, a viridian ferret, chimed in. "Like we'd ever let you join! You'd still be a freak!"

The others broke out in guffaws, and Stew stepped back, grinning snidely. "Yeah, Karlos is right. Whatever _was_ I thinking?" He made a mocking shrugging gesture, causing the other gang members to laugh even harder.

Miles shuddered now at the memory. He was lucky he had decided to visit the library that day…Chaos only knew what he'd be doing to himself right now—slicing off his tail with a shard of metal? Stealing the butcher's knife?—if he hadn't.

"Miles, are you all right?" Susan had asked, concern edging in her voice when she saw Miles walk in despondently, tails dragging on the ground.

"Fine," he remembered muttering, plopping down into a chair at one of the low tables. He looked dismally at the books scattered haphazardly across the surface, absently wondering if there was a book on ways to saw off unnecessary limbs—when he saw it.

The book was lying open on the table: "Basic Planes" by Simon Shrew, a kids' book, the kind that normal kids used to write reports. In fact, this seemed to be its purpose—there were other books on the table of similar subject. Miles was tempted to ignore it—he liked the technical adult books better, because they didn't dumb things down so much—until he saw the page it was opened to. "Propellers", it said in big letters at the top of the page. "Airplanes and helicopters have propellers so they can move forward or upwards. They usually consist of two or more blades, which turn to pull air through them. This creates _lift_ for the helicopter and _thrust_ for the plane."

There were brightly colored boxes explaining the meaning of _lift_ and _thrust_, but Miles had ignored these, already knowing what they meant. This wasn't the first time he had read about propellers, skimming over the topic. Instead, it was one particular sentence that had caught his attention:

"They usually consist of two or more blades, which turn to pull air through them."

He looked again.

"Two or more blades."

A smile grew across his face.

He immediately dove into the books on the table, feverishly flipping through the pages, running back and forth from the nonfiction section of the library to the little table, and poring over the books. The only time he had talked to Susan all that day was to ask for a notepad and a pencil, for taking notes on, of course.

For the first time in his life, he was actually _excited _about the extra appendage he'd always considered a hindrance.

That was how it had gone for the past couple of weeks, poring over every single book he could find in the library about propellers, talking very little, drawing detailed diagrams based off of those in the books, calculations about drag and lift. Today had been the last day, finishing up his research with a couple final notes and thoughts before he began his actual test.

He smiled now, now that he was heading off to his test field, a small clearing about a mile outside the village. He was likely to be the first person to ever have tried such an experiment—this was the biggest, and most important project he had ever attempted up to date, and if this succeeded…maybe, just maybe, he could convince the other kids he wasn't such a loser.

* * *

Once he reached the clearing, he was so excited about the idea that he might be flying one day that he didn't notice where he was going—he only noticed when he tripped over an old tree root sticking out and went sprawling in the dust.

"Heh heh, whoops," he laughed, too ecstatic about his plans to care too much about the throbbing pain now in his knees. He immediately got up and scouted out the place.

He had been here a few times before—it was the only real safe place he had other than the library, and the only place he didn't have to worry about people's weird stares. However, the longest he'd ever stayed here was a day in mid-June, and he'd only eaten some berries from a bush. It was almost September now. He'd need a warm place to sleep and a substantial source of food and water.

He cast a glance around, left hand raised to shield his eyes from the dappled sunlight throwing light speckles around. There was the bush he'd eaten from last time—upon checking it, he found it was still covered in those late-summer berries. Now, for the water…he could just barely make out the sound of water running somewhere not too far from here. He grinned when he realized what that meant: where water was, there were plants.

Trying his hardest to not crash too much through the underbrush, he soon found that he had been correct: now he was standing on the bank of a little stream, and surrounding him were various flowers and plants he recognized as edible from the books. He smiled to himself. Perfect.

After refreshing himself with a quick drink and digging up a few plants to eat, he ran back to the clearing. Now, a sleeping spot. Hm. He didn't want it to be on the ground—he'd be out in the open. No, up higher would be better, preferably with a covering of some sort, but he wasn't about to be too picky.

He retraced his steps back to the root he'd initially tripped on, and he found that it hadn't been such an unfortunate accident—the branches of that particular tree looked stable, it had fruit, and one particular branch, about ten feet up, had another leafy branch hanging directly above it. Out of reach, easy to spot possible attackers, food, shelter…who could ask for more?

Just to test the branch, Miles stuck his notebook and pencil in his mouth and began to climb the tree. He was an excellent climber (for rather unfortunate reasons), and he was able to pinpoint the little knobbles and inconsistencies in the bark of the tree that many others would not. At first, he slipped a little, scraping his hands on the bark until they burned slightly, but he kept going, and he got the hang of it. Soon enough, he was on the selected branch. He sat on it, tails dangling down, then shimmied across it, even stood on it and bounced his little weight on it a bit. Seemed secure enough.

He sat back down again to find that the sun was already setting. There was hardly any point in climbing back down again to start testing, so he decided to start tomorrow in the bright sunlight. He set his notebook and pencil in a little hollow close to the main trunk.

He only realized his exhaustion when he finally lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Miles awoke to the sound of a songbird trilling quite loudly on the end of his tree branch. He tried covering his ears, but that didn't quite work, and after futile attempts of going back to sleep, he decided to sit up instead and examine the little Flicky.

It hopped up and down the branch, trilling and chirping and making little Flicky noises, as if shouting to the rest of the forest, _Hey, guys, check this out! I can sing! _Upon seeing that it had an audience, it turned to Miles and began to sing. He whistled back the only two notes he had mastered (when people heard him practicing, they always chased him away) in a sense of greeting. The little bird chirruped back, as if chuckling at a good joke Miles had just told. Then another, larger Flicky—of similar plumage, so Miles assumed they were related—flew down and chirped harshly at the smaller one.

_What on Mobius do you think you're doing?_ Miles imagined it was saying. Perhaps it was the mother bird, coming to scold her son. _You've been waking up half the forest and now you're bothering this poor fox. What have you to say for yourself?_

_Well, Ma,_ the smaller Flicky appeared to say,_ I just thought I'd practice the songs you taught me yesterday. And see, look, he's smiling—I think he likes my songs._

_More like he's laughing at how stupid you look. Come along._ The larger bird leapt off the branch, spreading its wings in flight as it soared away.

_Meh. Spoilsport. _The Flicky looked at Miles one last time. _See ya. _Then it spread its own wings, following suit of its companion. With its departure left Miles' wandering mood—time to get to work so that he could soon do the same.

Miles shimmied down the tree again and headed for the stream for his breakfast.

* * *

_Whoa._

The sun wasn't the only thing up in the trees that afternoon.

_This is kinda high._

He'd read the books, checked and double-checked and even triple-checked his notes—but Miles Prower had just learned that you couldn't learn everything from the books. Reading about flying was one thing…standing on the end of a branch to try jumping off of it was something else entirely. The branch was the same as it had been the night before, but last night he hadn't the intention of throwing himself off of it. Now it looked dizzyingly high and pretty scary. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, desperate for some kind of help.

He recalled the little Flicky that morning—it leapt off the branch, spread its wings, and glided off. That was likely the way it learned—by throwing itself off the branch over and over.

Well begun is half done, right?

He opened his eyes and began spinning his tails behind him. It wasn't so hard now as it had been a few weeks prior due to the exercises he'd invented for himself (in secret, of course). He could spin them for a few minutes at this point without getting them tangled up, and he could even run with them spinning behind him—he'd discovered (on accident when being chased away) that they greatly improved his running speed.

The ground looked so far away.

Had he been wearing a collar, he might have tugged on it—as it were, he began to spin his tails faster and clenched his teeth. _Just get it over with._

He jumped.

Down, down, he flailed his arms and legs as his tails abruptly gave out—but unlike the little Flicky, no amount of flapping (or screaming or flailing) was going to help Miles, who had been born a fox, regardless of the extra tail.

"OW!"

Luckily for him, he hadn't landed completely on his head, but he still saw stars bursting across his vision as he spat out the dirt he'd just eaten. "Ugh…stupid tails…"

Said tails soon received a childish glare from the owner, as if it was their fault, as if they could be sorry for failing him. When nothing happened, he sighed.

Maybe he should go back to practicing running.

* * *

Three hours later, Miles was still on the ground. Right now, he could run about a mile in four minutes with tails spinning. It was impressive, so he thought, especially comparing to other children his age.

It was nothing compared to his hero, though.

It had been about a year ago when the craze started. This fat guy with a huge mustache—called himself "Robotnik"—had decided he wanted to take over South Island with the help of his robotic army. Chills ran down Miles' spine when he had heard the story the first time—Robotnik had built this army by stuffing poor residents of the island into robot shells and using these people to power his machines. He was searching for the "Chaos Emeralds". Nobody really knew much about them…except that they were extremely powerful and whoever had possession of them would be too. Robotnik had apparently studied them and wanted them.

He never got them.

The crowd of kids sitting in the audience had fallen completely silent for once as the storyteller described to them the hero, a resident of the island, who had stopped the evil mastermind. _Whoosh!_ The storyteller waved his hands to demonstrate the impossible speed the hero possessed. _Crunch!_ He attacked a robot, setting the person inside of it free. _Pow! _He leapt up and hit the "Eggmobile", shredding through the metal with his razor-sharp blue spines.

Sonic the Hedgehog became everyone's hero that day.

Everyone that could afford them bought posters, comics, even action figures of the speedy blue hedgehog. The most popular kids at the park were the ones who had something related to Sonic. They invented games, with one kid playing as Sonic, another as Robotnik, and the rest as the army of robots—and everyone would fight over who would play Sonic. _Pow! Bang! Hi-yah! Take that! Boom!_—these would be heard in the streets, in homes, in the parks, on the playgrounds all over Westside Island (and likely everywhere else, too).

Miles never got to play as Sonic; nobody would even let him play Robotnik, despite his interest in mechanics. He couldn't afford the games, the posters, or the comics. All he could do was ogle the merchandise in the stores and hope he wasn't kicked out. And he hoped. Hoped that one day he could somehow get one of these items. Hoped that if he got one, that the other kids would like him. Hoped that if Sonic the Hedgehog ever visited Westside Island one day that he'd get a glimpse of him as he raced by.

He flopped down at the foot of his tree and pulled out the notebook Susan had given to him. Notes and diagrams of propellers spinning were scrawled all over the first half of the notebook, but instead of re-reading them as he'd done many times during the past day, he flipped to the back cover. Carefully taped to the inside was a picture—a picture he'd drawn of his hero.

A few weeks prior while scrounging for food once again in the trash, he'd stumbled upon a garbage can belonging to one of the wealthier families—he could tell by the excess food inside. Delighted, he dug through that one for a few minutes, eating what he could, discarding what he couldn't into the can next to it.

He'd found a piece of cardboard sticking out with something blue on it. He was about to chuck it…when he saw what was on it.

This wasn't any ordinary cardboard to Miles—this was part of a cardboard box that had once contained a Sonic action figure.

Ecstatic, he dug through the whole trashcan, hoping the action figure had been faulty and been thrown out as well—no luck. Still, he was almost jumping for joy at holding a free picture of Sonic in his grubby little hands.

The next day at the library, he'd asked Susan for paper and colored pencils, plunked himself down at an empty table, and proceeded to painstakingly copy the picture.

Miles was not as good of an artist as he was a mechanic—this anybody could tell by the wiggly sticks that were Sonic's arms and legs and the triangles for quills. Nevertheless, Miles had proudly signed his creation when he was finished, showed it to Susan, and kept it as his most prized possession. He used to keep it in the library under the green chair's cushion, but after losing the original cardboard to the janitor's vacuum, he decided it was safer in the notebook.

_Sonic's not afraid of anything._

He looked back up into the tree, looking up through the branches that seemed to extend endlessly upwards into the sky.

He decided to try flying again.

* * *

If Miles hadn't learned the hard way at the orphanage from a very young age that certain words were not meant for young children to use, he might have used them.

"Why is this SO HARD?" he yelled at no one in particular. At the trees. At the birds. At his tails. "What am I doing WRONG?"

He'd learned many times that success doesn't always come on the first try—just ask the grocer how many times he'd chased Miles out. Miles had learned to be patient with things for the most part. This was how, despite his extreme enthusiasm, he'd made himself painstakingly comb the books for weeks before finally going out to experiment.

But two weeks of falling on his face had left his patience level severely lower than when he had started.

"What am I doing wrong?" he muttered again, leaning into the tree, pressing his forehead into one of the many knobs. "I did all the research, and I have _doubled_ my running speed. Everything else is going to plan—but by two weeks, I should at least be able to _hover_. So what am I doing wrong?"

The answer had something to do with the change of height, he knew—just like the first day, his tails abruptly froze when he jumped. Every time he climbed up the tree. Every time, he went over the notes mentally before jumping. Every single time he ended up choking on dirt.

Every. Single. Time.

He kicked the tree as if venting his anger on it would help. What a stupid idea. Did he really think he could _fly_? No matter how smart he was, did he really delude himself into thinking he could figure out what generations could not?

Discouraged and depressed now, he picked up a stick and snapped it. He'd go back to town tomorrow and ask Susan to help him burn all of his notes. What a stupid idea. He threw the notebook disgustedly to the ground. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

With this resolve in his mind, he climbed up his tree one last time and fell asleep.

* * *

As the sun began to rise the next morning, it appeared to smile at the young fox sleeping high up in the tree, but it did not rouse him like it usually did. It just waited, watching him.

Had he been awake, Miles might have been alarmed to see something on the horizon zooming towards the island at an alarming speed—a plane, perhaps, but he would have found it hard to tell due to the cloud of black smoke enveloping it.

As it were, though, Miles was not aware of any flying objects in the sky whatsoever, wrapped up in slumber so soundly that he was only aware of it when it crashed on the coast.

_WHA-BOOM!_

Miles jerked awake, instinct screaming to get out of there. Automatically his foot searched for the ground so he could flee, and his hand went out to help push himself up.

Unfortunately, he hadn't picked the broadest branch on the tree to sleep in.

His foot and hand found only air, and being half-asleep, he couldn't right himself in time.

He wasn't ready this time—no checking and re-checking the notes, no preparatory tail warm-up, no deep breath to ease his nerves, no proper take-off position—yet Miles found himself screaming as he plummeted from the tree.

There was nothing controlled about this experiment—not his arms and legs, which flailed wildly about, nor his thoughts, which ran along the lines of "AHHH I'M GOING TO DIE". He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping his eyes didn't get too much dust into them.

There was no impact.

A full second had passed before he realized it, but even then it was hard to believe—there had been no impact, no dirt flying into his sinuses to force him to cough uncontrollably for the next five minutes. Had he landed on a tree or into a bush? No, there would have been impact there too. Nobody had caught him—there was no one around for miles that he knew about.

So how had he stopped falling?

He tried to peel one eye open—maybe he had suffered a head injury and was dead? No, he could see through that one. Thus, he opened the other as well—but having both eyes open made the sight before him no more believable.

He was hovering.

The ground was right underneath him, but it was farther away than he'd expected—his toes were dangling a couple inches in the air above it. What was suspending him? He turned his head to look about.

His mouth fell open.

There they were, forming an orange blur and making a _fwap fwap fwap_ sound as they turned…the appendages that had failed him before, now whirling around just like he'd drawn in the diagrams…his tails were spinning, just like helicopter blades.

He was flying.

He would've continued to stare for a few minutes had his tails not suddenly decided at that moment that they were tired and gave out—and dumped him unceremoniously onto the ground. Despite this, an enormous grin slowly spread across his face.

"I did it."

As reality set in even more, his whole face lit up. "I did it!" His voice rose into a whoop and broke into laughter. "I did it! I did it!" Without giving it much thought, he climbed up the tree again to the same branch and threw himself off of it, whooping and laughing with childish delight at his achievement when his tails caught him again and he landed lightly on the ground. Again. And again. And again. The cheers turned into a sing-song chant as his confidence blossomed. "I did it! Look at me, a fox that can fly! I did it! I did it! I really did it!" Joy surged through his very being—he couldn't remember being this happy in his entire life.

When he had recovered from his giddiness enough, he raced over to the foot of the tree, where he had thrown his notebook in anger the night before. Picking up the pencil, he giddily scrawled these words under the previous entry:

_"September 7__th__: Flew for the first time."_

* * *

_A/N: Again, regardless of what you thought, please review!_

_Guest: Thank you very much! I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it progresses._

_bearvalley3365: Thank you for the compliment. I already told you that I would consider it if you sent me the panda's bio. Now please stop bugging me about it._

_nobestseller: Thank you. :D __I think Tails is cute too. _I definitely put a lot of effort in this-if you saw the difference between this and the handwritten draft, you'd see why. ;) 


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